I’ve watched some great flicks lately—and some truly terrible ones.  The holidays hit, and I forgot about them!  I guess the “great flicks” weren’t all that great after all.

My plan for 2024 is to move away from just reviewing weird horror movies, and instead getting into some of the timeless classics (some of which, of course, will be weird horror movies).  I’ve been hankering for some high quality viewing.  Just like food, there’s only so much garbage you can absorb before you’re ready to eat a steak.  Just as my body starts craving real food after a week of eating pathetic sandwiches and bachelor chow-tier spaghetti, so does my mind crave excellence after watching the grindhouse trash on Shudder.

But that’s to come.  Although I’ve nearly exhausted Shudder’s extensive library of the good, the bad, and the terrible (pretty much any horror movie made in the last five years, or any horror flick with Canadian actors), I stumbled upon a series—not a movie—called Deadwax (2018).

Typically, I’m not one for shows.  Outside of, say, Bob’s Burgers, I don’t really watch serialized media anymore.  The problem is that it’s unclear how long the show is going to last, and how many dozens—or hundreds—of episodes I’ll have to endure to get the full story.  A movie wraps up—tidily or otherwise—in ninety minutes (if I’m lucky) or in three hours (if I see any movie in the theater, it seems).  Either way, it’s a self-contained, complete story.

When I do watch a show, I like a limited series—everything is wrapped up in, say, eight-to-twelve episodes, often with a satisfying sense of having been on a journey.  Some films should be limited series—Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023), which I enjoyed, would have really benefited from that approach—as the extended runtime allows for deeper exploration of characters and events.  I’m not interesting in watching a story that lasts 100 hours, but a story that takes eight hours is easy enough to consume over a long weekend.

Such is the case with Deadwax, which consists of eight episodes, each about twenty-two minutes in length (so the whole series is just under three hours).  While it’s presented in a serialized format, with episodes ending in cliffhangers, it could easily be viewed as a movie with credit thrown in every twenty minutes.

But enough about the format and my particular viewing habits.  Deadwax is an intriguing and stylish thriller based on a fascinating premise:  listening to a particular rare record results in the listener’s death.  Hearing a portion of the record—even a split second—causes the listener to go insane.

The series is an audiophile’s dream.  It’s all about mixing and mastering records, and the unique mysticism of vinyl records.  The series’ title refers to the area between the listenable portion of a record and the label.  This “deadwax”—a holdover from when records were recorded on wax or insect shellac, rather than vinyl—holds interesting information, such as who mastered the record, and where it was mastered.

The show depicts a world of wealthy audiophiles and the considerably-less-affluent techies who hunt down extremely rare records.  The main protagonist is Etta Price, who fits the typical tropes of a “modern woman” in these shows—she’s cold, aloof, stylish, too-cool-for-school, etc.  She’s also—of course—a lesbian, involved in a relationship with another improbably attractive woman (just once I wish Hollywood would portray lesbians are they really are—beer-swilling, flannel-wearing, violent, rectangular blobs).  Not surprisingly, she’s not terrible likeable, but Hannah Gross plays the character well enough that I wasn’t rooting for her destruction.  Indeed, the character’s blunt, casual indifference actually fit with the story.

But even an unlikeable, “modern audiences” lead couldn’t scuttle this show.  The premise is amazing, and amazingly executed.  The story is told out of sequence, and dribbles hints and breadcrumbs as to what is going on.  Besides the lesbian relationship and the idea of a killer record, the only other unbelievable element is a college radio station DJ who never stutters or says “um and ah”—and who makes for an incredibly interesting character!

The show revolves around the quest to find the lethal record, the legendary Lytton lacquer.  There are three other records—Key I, Key II, and Key III—which apparently hold some secret to reversing the negative effects of the Lytton lacquer (although not, presumably, death itself—one character is turned into a mummy after listening to the record; there’s no coming back from that).  The whole thing is a progressive rock nerd’s dream.

If you’re an audiophile or interesting in vinyl records, the show is a treasure-trove of practical information.  I learned a great deal about vinyl that I never knew—including what “deadwax” is!  I’ve listened to vinyl records since I was very little, but I’ve never been a vinyl enthusiast.  At a time when the format has enjoyed a massive revival, however, a show like “Deadwax” made perfect sense, and it’s deepened my appreciation for this once-dominant mode of consuming music.

I won’t reveal more, lest I ruin the plot, but this show is definitely worth watching.  Carnivorous, genetically-modified beetles; cool, synthesizer-heavy music; musically-induced insanity—Deadwax has it all.